FROM THE CHAIRMAN

by Michael Gregory, M.D., Chairman

The Problems That Will Kill You

February 6, 2009

During World War II Adolf Hitler created an atmosphere where everyone around him was genuinely fearful, in many cases for their lives, of giving him anything but good news. Winston Churchill, on the other hand, created an office right next to his, the sole purpose was to give him bad news quickly. Adolf Hitler believed he was winning the war right up until days before he took his own life. No one can know how WWII would have played out had Germany leaders been working with accurate information. I have long said that it is the problems you don’t know about that will kill you. In Hitler’s case, this was certainly true.

If you knew the plane had a faulty engine would you get on it? What if the mechanic didn’t want to give the pilot the bad news that the engine wasn’t working right? After all, it is the mechanic’s job to make sure the airplane works. The point is that no one likes to be the bearer of bad news, but the news is the news. I learned something about finance many years ago. “The numbers are what they are.” You can concoct any number of permutations, explanations or, perhaps more appropriately, excuses, but the numbers don’t change. We live in a society that has developed a strong culture of blame and a strong aversion to accountability. It is in every headline you read these days. The CEO of the company requiring billions of dollars in taxpayer bailouts describes “the difficult market,” “a long series of unforeseen challenges,” “difficult labor relations,” etc. Conspicuously absent from any of these statements are the words “it is my fault” or even “I’m sorry.” No doubt these folks don’t want to give bad news to shareholders, Wall Street or Congress, but the truth is the truth and even if it is out of style at the moment, it always comes back.

Which brings me to my point; Apogee is like any other organization and our people, whom are better than the people in any organization on earth (my column, my opinion), are subject to the same desire to excel and the same human feelings that make good news more appealing than bad news. However, it is the problems I don’t know about that I fear most. When do I loose sleep at Apogee? It is when things are going well or too well. I wonder about what is wrong? What don’t I know? Why? The truth is, something is always wrong somewhere. We have lots of old sayings at Apogee but one is “If you have a problem and you are the only one who knows about it, it is, by definition, your problem.” With that said, I and ALL of Apogee’s leaders need to know about problems. Your problems are our problems. We are in this together and if the engine is about to fall off the airplane, we are all willing to miss the flight. Please have the courage to come forward with your ideas, your concerns and most importantly your problems!

It is the problems we don’t know about that will kill us (write that down).

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